Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Sonya Yoncheva Heralded As Mimì At MET By New York Times

Ms. Yoncheva in rehearsal (Photo: Jonathan Tichler/MET Opera)

"In the third act of Puccini’s La Bohème, Mimì, the tubercular seamstress, says goodbye. 'Addio,' she tells Rodolfo, her poet lover, at the end of the aria 'Donde lieta usci,' and then repeats it for emphasis: 'Addio, senza rancor.' Many Mimìs keep this moment simple, singing both iterations of 'addio' roughly the same. But at the Metropolitan Opera on Friday, the Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva first sang the word in a voice straightforward and resolute, trying desperately to project strength. The second time, she sounded wispy and vulnerable: a poignant revelation of her true feelings. Subtle, thoughtful and heart-rending, the passage seemed like the work of a veteran artist. But astonishingly, this was Ms. Yoncheva’s first staged performance of the role. Her delicate, dreamy, detailed Mimì has arrived more or less fully formed — and, for good measure, with less than two weeks’ notice and just a month after she gave birth to a son....Her voice is not huge, but her precise articulation of the text and the slightest metallic glisten in her warm tone allow it to penetrate. Her first-act aria built to a gently riveting reverie, and she grew in tragic stature as the opera went on, with her soft-grain echo of Rodolfo’s earlier melody a textbook lesson in tender nostalgia near the end. The rest of the performance was not at her level." [Source] Her debut recording, "Paris, Mon Amour," will be released on Sony Classics in January 2015.

As the delicate Puccini character Mimì in La Bohème, Sonya Yoncheva receives a triumphant review.